China Officials Push Water Plan

By

Jeremy Page

Updated Nov. 9, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

BEIJING—Local officials in China's arid northwest have launched a new push for a vast water-diversion project that would pump raw sea water thousands of miles from the coast to the deserts of Xinjiang through a pipeline made of plastic and fiberglass.

The idea is to desalinate some of the seawater, but to use the rest to fill Xinjiang's dried-up salt lakes and desert basins in the hope that it will evaporate and encourage rainfall...